<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Silver Bullet by LavenderJam</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28484496">Silver Bullet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderJam/pseuds/LavenderJam'>LavenderJam</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Affair era, Cravings, Daemon Touching, F/M, Foreshadowing, Marisa is not maternal, Pre-Canon, Pregnancy, Sex, Who knew snow leopards had such good chat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:54:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,902</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28484496</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderJam/pseuds/LavenderJam</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A rustle from the doorway disturbed her, and when she swivelled her head she expected to see Asriel leaning against the doorjamb, or perhaps the monkey’s wistful eyes reflecting the cold gleam of the moon. Instead, she was greeted by Stelmaria, the snow leopard’s coat sparkling in the soft light.</p><p>She sat down on the rim of the porcelain bathtub, sighing as Stelmaria brushed against her thigh and came to stand before her. “You’re restless,” the dæmon said.</p><p>(Several weeks before Lyra enters the world, Marisa and Asriel manage to spend a night together, and Marisa struggles to shake the sense of impending doom that’s also growing inside her.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter, Marisa Coulter &amp; Stelmaria</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Silver Bullet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>“He’s a failure of a man, and a failure of a father.” - His Dark Materials, season one, episode two, the Idea of North</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His suitcase was packed and waiting by the door, his tickets were slotted into the monogrammed wallet that Marisa had purchased for his last birthday, but mere hours before he was due to leave for Paris her husband had looked upon her with wide, pitiable eyes and asked if he should cancel. Her response was borderline hysterical.</p><p>“No! No, my love, you must go. I insist. It has been so many months since you visited the embassy and it’s not fair to deprive them of your presence any longer. You simply must go. It’s important.”</p><p>The monkey tugged discreetly on her curls as a warning, though Edward seemed pathetically warmed by her enthusiasm. “If you’re certain, my sweet.” He stroked her swollen stomach. “I just feel so terrible leaving you, you know, in your condition.”</p><p>“It’s not an <em>ailment</em>,” she said, suppressing a wince as the monkey gave another sharp tug on her hair. She smiled at her husband. “My love, the child is not due to arrive for several weeks. There’s no need to alter your plans just yet. You should go. I want you to.” She kissed him.</p><p>He still looked undecided. “And you know,” she said, “I was so hoping that you’d bring a box of that delightful marchpane back with you. The one made by the confectioner we visited on our honeymoon. I’d hate to miss out on that. I’ve just had such a <em>craving </em>for it recently.” She smoothed her hand over her stomach.</p><p>That seemed to do it. “Alright then,” he said, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “For the marchpane.”</p><p>After his blessed exit, she’d waited until his zeppelin was due to take off before dismissing the staff, then waited another hour before slipping into a sleek black car parked three streets from her house, wearing a coat that was far too thick for the clement spring weather but ideal for concealing the obscene protrusion of her stomach. She arrived in the early evening, the golden light casting the Thames with a pleasant glow and the fragrant scent of gardenia perfusing the air as she nipped into October House and handed her furs to Thorold.</p><p>If it had been a challenge to spend longer than a few hours together in the early days of their affair, then finding adequate opportunities to be together during her pregnancy was a task of herculean proportions. It had not been helped by Asriel’s swift escape to the North a mere week after she’d told him about the child’s impending existence – he’d insisted that the expedition had been planned for months, and while she’d known that he was telling the truth, his prolonged absence had still left a vile taste on her tongue – nor by the month she spent eluding him after he returned in the early spring, ignoring the cryptic letters he delivered through her door and evading him like oil evades water every time they were in close proximity. He’d cornered her in the library at the Arctic Institute some weeks ago now, his fingers digging brutishly into her arms as he berated her for her petulance, and it had taken this long to nudge Edward safely across the border so that they might spend one night together before the cataclysm inside her made its grand entrance into the world.</p><p>Thorold’s eyes were buoyant as he looked upon the woman carrying his master’s child, her engorged stomach impossible to ignore now that her coat was safely stowed away. Marisa resisted the urge to hit him, though her monkey’s hiss was enough to make Thorold’s pinscher-dæmon cower. “He’s in the drawing room,” the manservant said, and she stalked through the house to locate her lover without uttering a word.</p><p>She found him in an armchair, a book open on one knee and a notebook on the other, his tongue sticking out in concentration as his hand scored messy scrawls across the page. Their dæmons lunged for each other, their intertwining forms like two precious metals melding together in a blast furnace, the silver and gold blurring into bronze as their souls reunited on the ground. The force of their embrace was strong enough to break Asriel’s otherwise impenetrable focus, but when his eyes met Marisa’s, they only received a scowl. He returned her glare with equal impudence.</p><p>“Hello, my dear,” he said blandly.</p><p>She waited for his eyes to fall to her stomach, as everyone else’s did the moment they’d greeted her, if not before, but his fierce gaze continued to bore into hers, the two of them now committed to this childish deadlock.</p><p>They stared at each other for long enough that Marisa’s feet began to ache, another hazard of being forced to carry the world’s most unsightly accessory at all times. She sunk down onto the leather sofa with a sigh and kicked off her heels, and the sight of her settling in made Asriel’s eyes soften. He closed the book. “I am very glad to see you. Finally.”</p><p>There was no reason to obscure her own feelings: their dæmons were still wrapped around each other and the mere sight of his face had a smile tugging at her lip. But instead, she reclined against the leather and raised a dark eyebrow. “I’m not the one who disappeared north for several months at the most inopportune of moments.”</p><p>He bowed his head, already exasperated. “We discussed this, Marisa. I’d have lost thousands if I hadn’t gone, and – ”</p><p>“Yes, I remember,” she said icily.</p><p>He sighed and started over to the collection of spirits clustered on the bureau, decanters filled with amber and  russet and ruby liquids, rich, colourful shadows projected onto the wallpaper behind. He poured himself a glass of bourbon and then held up the bottle to her. She tilted her head and placed a hand on the swell of her stomach. His eyes fell to her belly. “Oh yes.”</p><p>He collapsed onto the stiff leather with a huff, the liquor sloshing against the edges of the tumbler. His eyes swept over her bloated form, cataloguing her as he always did when they’d been apart for some time, but they came to rest on her stomach, as she’d known that they would. She turned to him with a glare. “Must you stare like that? I assume that you’ve seen a pregnant woman before.”</p><p>“Never one who’s pregnant with <em>my </em>child,” he said, placing a broad hand on her abdomen, his thumb stroking the taut skin through the silk cotton of her dress.</p><p>She brushed him off. “Asriel, I’m begging you, all anyone wants to discuss with me now is the pregnancy. Will you really force me to add you to that list?”</p><p>His thumb swept over her distended navel twice more, but another glance at her irked expression had him removing his hand and swigging from his glass. “You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I find gestation fascinating, which I do not.” He leaned forward and gave her unwelcoming lips a rough kiss, his stubble scratching her skin like sandpaper. “I didn’t ask you here because I want to rub your swollen feet or send Thorold out to fetch some arcane foodstuff.” </p><p>“My feet aren’t swollen,” she said indignantly. He peered at her stockinged toes and raised an eyebrow. She slapped his chest.</p><p>“It shouldn’t surprise you to hear that I’m not waiting around for you to share updates on the child’s development. In fact, I’ve hardly thought about the thing at all.” He was overcompensating now, but she decided to ignore that. It didn’t matter <em>why </em>he was feigning disinterest, only that he continued to do so. “I asked you here because I wanted to see <em>you</em>,” he said, and she placed her hand on his cheek and kissed him.</p><p>Both the humans and dæmons clutched each other in the warm light of the early evening as Marisa and Asriel’s tongues entwined, the flecks of dust twinkling in the vast shafts of sunlight that were draped across the room. The child began to move inside her, no doubt buoyed by the way her heartbeat had quickened, and for a moment she considered returning his hand to her belly, so that they could bear witness to the child together. Then a great ache pierced her chest and she pulled away from him.</p><p>“We didn’t find much time to talk about Beringland when we last spoke,” she said, knowing that he remembered their brusque encounter at the Institute as well as she did. “You must have something interesting to show me from <em>four months </em>on the ice.”</p><p>He dragged her to his study with a grin, his frown replaced with the boyish enthusiasm that always accompanied his stories from the frozen wastes. They pored over his samples together for a long while, then meandered downstairs after Thorold rang the bell for dinner, choosing to eat at the small oak table in the kitchen instead of the austere mahogany slab in the dining hall. Their knees knocked together as Marisa offered him the latest tales from London, their dæmons chattering away beside them, Stelmaria clutching the monkey to her breast and licking his golden fur like a mother.</p><p>As the evening progressed and night blanketed the city, Asriel’s eyes kept falling to her stomach more and more frequently. She ignored his lapses, continuing to speak as he stared at her new curves, hating the way she started to sweat as even a stray movement of his pupils made the elephant in the room impossible to gloss over. By the time they’d finished eating and had made their way to his bedroom, her many yawns a definitive enough example of her exhaustion that no amount of protest could stop him from herding her upstairs, he was gazing at her with excruciating adoration, his hands scrabbling at her dress before she’d had time to close the door behind them.</p><p>“Asriel,” she said, batting him away.</p><p>He buried his face in her hair. “I want to touch you.”</p><p>She sighed and moved to turn out the light. He frowned. “What are you doing?”</p><p>Her face must have belied some unspoken discomfort, because his eyes crinkled as he reached around her to unbutton her sheath dress. “Leave it. I want to look at you too.”</p><p>“Don’t,” she said, as he pulled the dress from her arms and let it fall to the floor. “I’m unsightly.”</p><p>She was left standing in just her undergarments, the silk of both her brassiere and her drawers cutting into her, because she still refused to buy new lingerie to accommodate her expanding frame. Her skin crawled as his eyes surveyed the stretchmarks that now striated her thighs, the crass convexity of her navel, the way her breasts strained against the straps of a garment that had been rendered insufficient weeks ago.</p><p>She tried to turn away but he held her in place with firm hands on her hips. His cheeks were flushed now, his chest heaving, and then he kissed her hungrily, his fingers grasping at her waist and her stomach pressing against his shirt as he plumbed her depths with his tongue.</p><p>What followed was a blur of abandoned clothes and scorched skin as they shed the rest of their garments and careered towards the bed. He settled himself behind her instinctively, his hands grasping at her swollen breasts, her backside, her hamstrings as he spooned her, though her belly was like a black hole, pulling his hand towards it with a powerful force, and soon he was stroking the stretched skin and splaying his fingers possessively across her, claiming what was his, even if they were the only two people in the world who knew it. She moved his hand back to her hip and tried to focus on the sloppy kisses he was smothering against her shoulder.</p><p>This dance continued as he eased himself inside her, deftly adjusting to her new topography: his fingers continued to meander back to her stomach as he thrusted into her, and she continued to return his hand to another part of her body as they groaned and moved together. Their dæmons were writhing around on the Kashan rug at the end of the bed, but no matter how earnestly the monkey tried to nip and tussle with the snow leopard, Stelmaria forced him down with a gentle paw on his golden breast, and nuzzled her barbarous jaws into his fur so tenderly that Marisa’s feet began to fizz.</p><p>Asriel’s movement was sinuous and rhythmic, sliding his cock into her with more reverence than an infidelity deserved, though the sin of their coupling could only feel distant in that moment, her lover’s body encasing hers, his ragged breaths warming the shell of her ear, his deft fingers weaving with hers and sliding their intertwined hands towards her stomach. They were fucking like two people in love and it was unbearable.</p><p>“Harder,” she grunted, slapping his hand from her stomach and digging her nails into his skull. He paused, still flush against her, and she could feel the mighty beat of his heart against her back, as if the great muscle was yearning to leap from his chest to hers.</p><p>“For fuck’s sake, Asriel,” she snapped, pushing him out of her. He let out a pathetic moan and glared. “I am not <em>fragile</em>,” she said.</p><p>“That’s not – ” he began, but broke off with a sigh. There was a pause, their harsh breaths the only sounds disturbing the sticky, metallic air. “Alright,” he growled, grabbing her roughly by the hips and pushing her face into the pillow so that he could enter her from behind.</p><p>She had to rest a hand against the headboard to stop her crown from smashing into the wood, and the feel of her wrist creaking as he pounded into her made her mouth unfurl into a wolfish grin. “Yes,” she said, her legs trembling as his thighs slapped against hers, his cock sliding exquisitely over her engorged walls. “Yes, Asriel, just like that<em>.</em>”</p><p>He kept one hand on her hip and reached around to stroke her with the other, and the knowledge that all ten of his fingers were otherwise engaged and unable to grasp her stomach allowed her to finally melt into the moment, her saliva seeping into the pillowcase as she moaned. She knew that she was sopping, and as he fucked her relentlessly, groaning and grunting like he was in pain, she felt her toes curl and her stomach tighten and her cunt clamp down around him, and she cried out as she came, the sound muffled by the goose down of the pillow. Her vision clouded over, brilliant pinpricks punctuating the vivid blackness, and she felt weightless for a moment, floating in abstract space, before the bedroom coalesced before her once more and she was in his arms again, his semen pooling on her thighs, drunk on his feral smell, pine and liquor and musk, the power of him and her joined together intoxicating and excruciating in equal measure. His chest heaved as he pressed wet kisses to the nape of her neck, his tongue swirling over her skin and lapping up the salt that had already begun to crystallise.  </p><p>She felt tears prick at her eyes. Her stomach had compressed into a hard ball, the child twisting and turning inside her as her own chest quivered. He moved his hand tentatively to her stomach and she let him.</p><p>His fingers skated over their child, and she heard his breath hitch as the baby pushed back against his palm. Marisa blinked away the tears and spun in his arms, his hand forced to return to the crest of her pelvis.</p><p>“It is a marvel,” he said, gazing down at her belly, its swell pressed against his abdomen, the child suspended between their two bare bodies.  </p><p>Her blood turned cold. “It’s ghastly,” she said, curling away from him.</p><p>He sighed and pulled the covers over them both, tucking her beneath his chin, sketching patterns on her thigh with his index finger. “It is not,” he muttered, and that was the last thing she remembered before she drifted off to sleep.</p><p>She woke some hours later, moonlight bathing the room in a pearly glow, the drapes left open in their earlier haste to melt into each other. Asriel was snoring quietly beside her and their dæmons were curled up together on the floor, though she could see the monkey stirring now that her own eyes were open. She’d rather still be asleep, of course, but the child was pressing against her bladder, just another vulgar reminder of the way her body had been invaded, her organs now the playthings of this new being, to be prodded and overtaxed and compressed until the baby deigned to slough from her body and release her from its bind.</p><p>She slipped out of Asriel’s arms and padded into his bedroom’s adjoining bathroom. Once the pressure had been relieved she came to stand by the window, gazing at the moonbeams that decorated the churning darkness of the Thames. She stared at the inky water and wondered what it would feel like to plunge herself beneath the waves and never resurface. She wondered what Asriel would do. She wondered if he’d feel sorrow that he never saw his child’s face.</p><p>A rustle from the doorway disturbed her, and when she swivelled her head she expected to see Asriel leaning against the doorjamb, or perhaps the monkey’s wistful eyes reflecting the cold gleam of the moon. Instead, she was greeted by Stelmaria, the snow leopard’s coat sparkling in the soft light.</p><p>She sat down on the rim of the porcelain bathtub, sighing as Stelmaria brushed against her thigh and came to stand before her. “You’re restless,” the dæmon said.</p><p>“It’s not my fault that this child doesn’t allow me a moment’s peace.”</p><p>Stelmaria’s brow twitched. “You speak so coldly of it.”</p><p>Marisa tensed. “How else am I supposed to feel? I have to carry it with me every hour of the day, I can hardly stand for more than five minutes without my back aching, I’ve had to buy a whole new wardrobe, to say nothing of what could happen when the thing has been born – ” She stopped then. Even with an occupant her abdomen still managed to knot in moments of distress.</p><p>Stelmaria’s eyes were gentle. “You’re afraid.”</p><p>She swallowed. “Of course I am,” she whispered. “How could I not be?”</p><p>“Asriel isn’t.”</p><p>“That man wouldn’t know fear if it put a gun to his head,” Marisa said, and the woman and the great dæmon exchanged a smirk.</p><p>Stelmaria nuzzled her knee. “Tell me what worries you.”</p><p>“Only if you promise not to tell Asriel.”</p><p>“I don’t keep secrets from him,” the snow leopard purred. She rubbed her soft cheek against Marisa’s knee again and Marisa sunk her hand into the thick fur at the scruff of the leopard’s neck. It felt like velvet sliding through her fingers. “Tell me anyway.”</p><p>Silence, for a beat. And then: “He could kill me for this, you know,” Marisa whispered. “Or you. Or… <em>it. </em>The law permits him to avenge the violation of his wife, and there’s no greater proof than a child with another man’s face.”</p><p>“It might resemble you.”</p><p>“Asriel’s genes don’t strike me as the type to recede.” She began to tremble. “We have been so foolish, Stelmaria. So reckless. The best-case scenario sees me burdened with an infant and a terrible secret, and the worst…” She broke off, her eyes watering.</p><p>“Is he a good shot?” Stelmaria said, and despite herself, Marisa smiled.</p><p>“I doubt it.”</p><p>“Then there’s no need to be concerned.”</p><p>Stelmaria nudged Marisa’s hands from her knees and then replaced them with her own paws, pushing herself up until their eyes were level. Their gazes locked. “We won’t let anything happen to you, or the child.”</p><p>“You can’t be certain – ”</p><p>“You have my word,” the snow leopard said. “<em>Our </em>word. We will keep you from harm. Whatever that entails.”</p><p>Marisa nodded, but her eyes were still wide and shining. Stelmaria’s claws pressed gently into the bare skin of her legs. </p><p>“A part of his heart now lives within your chest,” she continued. “It is of great importance to us that nothing terrible befalls it.” </p><p>That made Marisa smile. “Take it back, if you must.”  </p><p>“You know that we can’t.”  </p><p>Then Stelmaria bowed her head and pressed her forehead to Marisa’s swollen stomach. She rumbled her throat against the tight skin and Marisa felt the raw power of Asriel’s soul, wild and passionate and brutal. As the snow leopard’s growl reverberated through Marisa’s body, the child became perfectly still, as if it too was in awe.</p><p>They settled into a comfortable silence, Stelmaria rubbing her muzzle over Marisa’s stomach and Marisa’s hands sliding through the snow leopard’s fur. It was Asriel who broke the spell, running his hand through his tousled hair as he appeared in the doorway, bare and radiant in the silver light.</p><p>“As cosy as this is,” he yawned, “were either of you planning to return to bed anytime soon?”</p><p>He slipped a lazy arm around Marisa’s waist and stroked her hip as woman, man and snow leopard padded back to the bed, Marisa pausing briefly to close the curtains and cloak the room in darkness. She slotted herself against Asriel this time, interlacing her fingers with his and placing them against the swell of her stomach. She felt him smile into her bare shoulder.</p><p>Stelmaria wrapped herself around the shivering monkey like a shroud, the strong muscles of her back pressed against the walnut baseboard, her nose ruffling his fur with hot air, her tail flicking against Marisa’s toes beneath the blanket.</p><p>Asriel’s hand slid over her belly, dragging her fingers with it, and soon the child began to shift inside her again, pressing back against Asriel’s broad palm. “It’s going to change everything, isn’t it?” she whispered.</p><p>He tightened his grip. “Perhaps. But change is hardly something to fear.” He kissed her hair. “Not when you have good people beside you.”</p><p>“You aren’t a good person.”</p><p>His chuckle rumbled through her torso. “Perhaps not. But I am beside you nonetheless.”</p><p>She nodded, her hair rustling against the pillow. His breathing soon became deep and even, and as she lay in the darkness she tried to focus on the strength of his hand against her stomach, the great sighs of his robust chest, the claws of his dæmon that glinted like knives, even in the low light. She let Stelmaria’s words spool through her mind, pretty words about love and protection and care. But the evidence of their power was battling with the ferocious sense of dread that had been swelling inside her for months, terror filling the spaces that the child did not. She glanced again at Stelmaria’s talons and imagined them shredding skin, imagined the snow leopard’s great jaws sinking into flesh and chipping bone, hoping that the thoughts of such violence would calm her, that they would help her truly believe his dæmon’s stirring promises. But the reminder of just how easily Asriel could tear things apart and leave them for dead only made her heart begin to race, for the alabaster skin being lacerated in her mind was intimately familiar. He was caressing it right now.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Marisa and Stelmaria interactions will forever be one of my favourite things in fic. Starting 2021 as I mean to go on. It would mean the world to me to hear what you thought!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>